New WP blog, plugins recommendations

Privacy Policy
WP-Syndicator (this is a paid plugin but worth it)
GoCodes (to cloak links)

Thanks Chris,

this is my first WP blog, from what I see, plugins just make it easier for novices to add features. I am just trying new things and will see how it goes.

Thank you,

While I do agree that the fewer plugins you run, the better, there are a few areas I see plugin use as important...

If you accept comments you'll need something to block automated comments, either Akismet or some type of CAPTCHA or automated comment blocking system. Turning off comments works fine for some niche marketing sites but you do want to leave them on for more interactive ones. And, unfortunately, the level of spam comments has dramatically increased over the past year or so due to the arrival of new spamming tools.

I use Platinum SEO in most cases to automate canonical tags and to have finer control over meta tags, primarily the title and description tags. This could be custom coded into a theme but I don't use the same theme everywhere and using this plugin saves time.

I also use various plugins to build internal links such as Yet Another Related Posts. This is another thing that could be done manually but having it automated is also a time saver.

Sitemap plugins I see as a potential performance problem, especially Google sitemap generators. I've seen people's shared hosting accounts get shut down because of these plugins eating up processor resources. If you use one, make sure it's one that you can set it to manually generate the map.

Here is what I recommend: Wp Simplicity. It installs 40 essential plugins, including all in one seo pack, social media, amazon and other monetization plugins and a whole load of other great plugins. You can download it free here: WP Simplicity-Plugin For WordPress

Also I recommend facebook social plugins, which you can get from Login | Facebook

create an appliaction for your web site and install facebook connect plugins from here: Facebook Developers

that way you can get your blog comments as a facebook stream and integrate like button, live event streaming, etc.

It's never enough to have more plugins
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My Snippets can create a widget that only appear with specific post (very useful)
Simple Captcha to avoid spammers

Not Google XML Sitemaps - Take a look at your sitemap and you'll see 10 lovely do-follow links to other sites. It's just like All in One Adsense plugin that takes 8% of your income.

What about the seo pressor? I think Its $97. I used the $7 trial of it but didn't think it was worth the $97.

thanks everyone, very informative posts. I will make sure to keep coming back to it.